3-D printed metallic gun could shoot $33B firearm industry in the foot
Solid Concepts, a small prototyping company that helps gun manufacturers identify problems with their designs in pre-production, yesterday unveiled what they believe is the first ever 3-D printed gun made of metal. That could be bad news for the $33 billion United States firearms industry.
“The intent wasn’t to build a gun for sale it was a technology proving exercise,” said Solid Concepts’ vice president Scott McGowan in an interview with Upstart Business Journal this afternoon. And for existing gun manufacturers he said it “just wouldn’t make sense” for them to switch to 3-D printing.
But what it does do is lower the barrier to entry for entrepreneurs who want to get into the gun manufacturing business.
McGowan said the $750,000 printers can produce one to three model 1911 guns per day. The same model on Smith and Wesson’s site sells for roughly $1,000 per gun. A hard-to-find tailor-made gun part could be printed and delivered in five days—which should catch the attention of the $33 billion sporting arms and ammunition industry employs 220,000 full-time Americans.
A federally licensed firearms manufacturer, Solid Concepts designed their version of the publicly available 3-D printed 1911 handgun to show that 3D printing is a viable competitor to existing manufacturing techniques.
As more people buy the machines and the technology itself gets cheaper to produce thanks to Moore’s Law, the price to enter the gun manufacturing business will only come down.
Based in Valencia, California the company printed the weapon using a direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) process in which metal powder is heated to create what can be thought of as “ink” for the printer. They also have 80 other “additive” machines that print in other materials.(
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